Yes… I have one. It is basically under control but every once in a while it seems to sneak in and take the control. I remember that when I was a child I was always cautioned about not ‘losing’ my temper. Initially I thought that was a strange comment because why wouldn’t you want to lose it? My temper only got me into trouble, never out of it so why would I want to retain it? Later I did understand the meaning of the phrase but it wasn’t till years later that I would understand the purpose of it.
As I said, I had a quick temper which I really wasn’t all that unfond of, though the long lasting positive outcomes were rare. Years later I think I substituted sarcasm for temper and I was truly a past master in that realm – nothing to be proud of. But the quick temper can still flash today – which always surprises me. The reason for the flash of temper is myriad but sometimes I can’t find the underlying cause. And not knowing the ‘why’ of anger is personally disturbing.
Eventually I understood the purpose of not losing my temper. My mother always told me that if I lost my temper I would never win the argument and when I considered this I discovered she was right. It was at that ‘enlightenment’ that I vowed to myself to not lose my temper again. Never totally successful, yet it was my intent. In this process I discovered the ‘not lose’ purpose. When you don’t control your temper, not lose, you do lose perspective and I found that was a higher reason then letting the emotion of losing your temper rule. Because when you lose your temper you give the control over to the other person. And losing control was never a positive outcome.
That was the less than noble reason to not lose my temper. As I discovered, the path you find yourself on when you do lose your temper is one of anger which can lead to hate and that’s a direction you don’t want to pursue. The only way to not lose control is to not lose your temper but to control your temper – which is why you never want to lose it. To control you need to know yourself well enough to know when you seem to be venturing down a path that will only lead to eventual problems. To control you need to know your ‘hot buttons’, areas that will send you into the mode of protecting your viewpoint. It’s important to know yourself well enough to know how to keep yourself from… losing your temper.
… but, what do you think?
